The Los Angeles Fire Department's top internal watchdog was removed from his post in the latest shakeup at the LAFD under new Mayor Eric Garcetti. The city Fire Commission voted, 5-0, to dismiss Stephen E. Miller, 59, from his position as the fire department's independent assessor on Tuesday. The job was created by a ballot measure approved by voters in 2009, partly in response to soaring settlement costs in employee harassment and discrimination lawsuits at the fire department.

The Los Angeles Fire Department's top internal watchdog was removed from his post in the latest shake-up at the LAFD under new Mayor Eric Garcetti. The city Fire Commission voted 5 to 0 Tuesday to dismiss Stephen E. Miller, 59, the department's independent assessor. The watchdog position was created by a voter-approved ballot measure in 2009, partly in response to soaring settlement costs in employee harassment and discrimination lawsuits at the department. Miller, a lawyer , was the first person to hold the job. During his tenure, he issued audits critical of how the department handled lawsuits and internal investigations . Last year, he clashed with fire officials and union leaders about access to sensitive personnel records.

LONDON - Hardly anyone knew it existed before last month. Its work has been criticized and its employees shot at. Bigger names, including that of a teenage girl, were thought to be ahead in line for the world's most prestigious award. But the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the watchdog group now at the forefront of the effort to divest Syria of its chemical arsenal, was declared the recipient Friday of the Nobel Peace Prize. It was the second year in a row that the prize committee decided to honor an institution and not a person, following last year's choice of the European Union.

When senior scientist Walter Tamosaitis warned in 2011 about fundamental design flaws at the nation's largest facility to treat radioactive waste in Hanford, Wash., he was assigned to work in a basement room without office furniture or a telephone. On Wednesday, Tamosaitis, an employee of San Francisco-based URS Corp., was laid off from his job after 44 years with the company. The concerns that Tamosaitis raised two years ago about the design of the waste treatment plant, a $12.3-billion industrial complex that would turn highly radioactive sludge into glass, were validated by federal investigators.

The cost of a proposed uranium processing facility for nuclear weapons in Oakridge, Tenn., has soared as high as $11.6 billion - 19 times the original estimate - even as critics accuse the Energy Department of overstating the need for spare bomb parts. Under a proposal unveiled in 2005, the manufacturing plant at the Y-12 National Security Complex would produce new uranium cores for the nation's stockpile of aging hydrogen bombs. But not long after the plan was disclosed, with an estimated cost of $600 million, the price tag began to climb.

Ann Ravel, California's top campaign finance watchdog, is heading to the Federal Election Commission after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Monday. Ravel, a Democrat, was approved alongside Republican Lee Goodman. The Federal Election Commission has been plagued by political gridlock, and the two nominees mark the first new commissioners on the panel since Obama first took office more than four years ago. Ravel is expected to serve at least one more month as chairwoman of California's Fair Political Practices Commission, according to Evan Westrup, a spokesman for Gov. Jerry Brown.

SACRAMENTO - After an anonymous $11-million donation from Arizona sent shock waves through California politics last year, the state Capitol seemed primed for new measures to tighten campaign finance rules. But several proposals fell by the wayside as lawmakers finished their work last week. Bills that would have increased the power of California's campaign finance watchdog, boosted fines for violations and forced greater disclosure of donors - among other measures - stalled in the Legislature.

SACRAMENTO -- A prominent government affairs firm and its high-profile employees have agreed to pay $40,500 in in fines for failing to register the workers as lobbyists. The fines will be paid by California Strategies LLC and Jason Kinney, former lawmaker Rusty Areias and Winston Hickox, who are partners in the firm. The state Fair Political Practices Commission investigators concluded that Kinney, Areias and Hickox qualified as lobbyists but failed to register with the state and disclose their lobbying activities.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Privacy watchdogs are asking federal regulators to block proposed changes to Facebook policies that they say would allow the company to use the names and images of its nearly 1.2 billion users without their consent to endorse products in ads. In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and five other consumer groups said the changes would permit Facebook "to routinely use...

SACRAMENTO - Let the frenzy begin. California legislators return Tuesday from a Labor Day break and begin a final rush to a Sept. 13 annual recess. They'll deliberate and vote on hundreds of bills that survived eight months of hearings, lobbying, votes, backroom deals and, of course, parliamentary maneuvering. On the agenda for business are bills relating to petroleum fracking, electricity rates, a possible increase in the minimum wage, and workers' comp benefits for athletes. It's also a time when good-government groups are on the lookout for measures that spring to life without being vetted by committees.